We’ve got an unpopular set of presidential candidates this year– Bernie Sanders is the only candidate in either party with a net-positive favorability rating — but Trump is the most unpopular of all. His favorability rating is 33 percent, as compared with an unfavorable rating of 58 percent, for a net rating of -25 percentage points. By comparison Hillary Clinton, whose favorability ratings are notoriously poor, has a 42 percent favorable rating against a 50 percent unfavorable rating, for a net of -8 points. Those are bad numbers, but nowhere near as bad as Trump’s.

You could plausibly argue that Ted Cruz would be a worse nominee than Trump despite having better favorability ratings and faring slightly better in general election head-to-heads. There’s reasonably clear evidence that voters tend to punish candidates with “extreme” (far right or far left) ideologies, and by statistical measures Cruz would be the most conservative nominee since (and possibly including) Barry Goldwater in 1964. Trump’s ideology is harder to pin down.

But that Cruz might be a bad nominee doesn’t make Trump a good one. It’s a perplexing that Republican elites have resigned to nominating either Trump or Cruz when nine other candidates are running and no one has voted yet.

And I know Palin still has her devoted cult following her realty show-worthy family, but I feel a bit more out of touch than usual watching how breathlessly CNN has been reporting her endorsing Trump all day like it's some kind of huge deal. I thought even most Trump voter-types had basically dismissed her at this point as a has-been. Am I wrong?

Sammy Sofa wrote:And I know Palin still has her devoted cult following her realty show-worthy family, but I feel a bit more out of touch than usual watching how breathlessly CNN has been reporting her endorsing Trump all day like it's some kind of huge deal. I thought even most Trump voter-types had basically dismissed her at this point as a has-been. Am I wrong?

to me, trump voter types seem to be the exact same people that would still listen to sarah palin

like you have to be an incredibly stupid person to listen to her or vote for trump

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longhotsummer wrote:I realize now, any opposing viewpoint, will not be tolerated.

Sammy Sofa wrote:And I know Palin still has her devoted cult following her realty show-worthy family, but I feel a bit more out of touch than usual watching how breathlessly CNN has been reporting her endorsing Trump all day like it's some kind of huge deal. I thought even most Trump voter-types had basically dismissed her at this point as a has-been. Am I wrong?

to me, trump voter types seem to be the exact same people that would still listen to sarah palin

like you have to be an incredibly stupid person to listen to her or vote for trump

Well, that's kinda my point; I thought she was SO passe that even most Trump supporter-types wouldn't give much of a horsefeathers about her. She's seemingly all but vanished from even Fox News since 2012 outside of scattered talking head moments each year.

Sammy Sofa wrote:And I know Palin still has her devoted cult following her realty show-worthy family, but I feel a bit more out of touch than usual watching how breathlessly CNN has been reporting her endorsing Trump all day like it's some kind of huge deal. I thought even most Trump voter-types had basically dismissed her at this point as a has-been. Am I wrong?

to me, trump voter types seem to be the exact same people that would still listen to sarah palin

like you have to be an incredibly stupid person to listen to her or vote for trump

Well, that's kinda my point; I thought she was SO passe that even most Trump supporter-types wouldn't give much of a [expletive] about her. She's seemingly all but vanished from even Fox News since 2012 outside of scattered talking head moments each year.

but not being part of that elite core of fox news participants is probably exactly why a trump supporter would like her (among many other ridiculous reasons)

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longhotsummer wrote:I realize now, any opposing viewpoint, will not be tolerated.

That's true. Her continued career/relevance in just a bizarre modern political outlier. She's basically known for losing and quitting and then basically doing nothing, yet somehow she still has political cache and relevance and followers; it's like if people still wanted to listen to Joe Liberman or something. I guess Huckabee sort of comes close, but even he has to keep actually running to keep his name out there.

Palin is a joke, of course, but this is a blow to Ted Cruz. The Christian Right has supported Cruz, but they love them some good ole fashioned hockey mom Sarah. In a close race in Iowa, this could kill the momentum that was building in the Ted Cruz camp.

Many are once again predicting the rise of Jeb, but I'm having trouble seeing a path to even 3rd for him.

This is such a bizarre circle-jerk for the Republicans. It's like a hate-off where everyone can't decide who they hate more. I'm honestly starting to think they might finally accomplish the impossible and finally convince a significant number of traditional Republican voters to stay home.

Though that's also why I still think someone Rubio or even Bush might emerge out of almost nowhere to take it. For all of Trump's blathering about him grabbing the "silent majority," the real silent majority of conservative voters mostly hate him and Cruz. In the last two elections the guys who ended up being the nominees had pretty wimpy numbers in the states (and even in some national polls) in the build up to the primaries. If you went by the frontrunners at this time you'd have thought Gingrich or Huckabee or even Giuliani was going to get the nod.

And holy horsefeathers, the other day I was messing around with the iPad so I wasn't totally paying attention to the TV, but I started hearing some of the most disturbing horsefeathers. I wouldn't have thought much but it was middle of the day in the middle of a sporting event kind of thing. It was a Huckabee commercial talking about the insane horsefeathers he will do when he's elected. It's insane that he and his people think this is what Americans want or need.

Ding Dong Johnson wrote:And holy [expletive], the other day I was messing around with the iPad so I wasn't totally paying attention to the TV, but I started hearing some of the most disturbing [expletive]. I wouldn't have thought much but it was middle of the day in the middle of a sporting event kind of thing. It was a Huckabee commercial talking about the insane [expletive] he will do when he's elected. It's insane that he and his people think this is what Americans want or need.

I don't remember Huckabee being nearly this crazy when he was running for in 2008.

Ding Dong Johnson wrote:And holy [expletive], the other day I was messing around with the iPad so I wasn't totally paying attention to the TV, but I started hearing some of the most disturbing [expletive]. I wouldn't have thought much but it was middle of the day in the middle of a sporting event kind of thing. It was a Huckabee commercial talking about the insane [expletive] he will do when he's elected. It's insane that he and his people think this is what Americans want or need.

I don't remember Huckabee being nearly this crazy when he was running for in 2008.

Huckabee no longer has any interest in actually becoming president; he's got a super lucrative career as a pundit with his own show and publishing deal since 2008. He knows he has no chance of winning and is in this to just pimping his name/brand and keep himself relatively relevant so he can keep making fat stacks.

But he was still crazy in 2008; it's why he initially seemed to be doing so well until the primaries. He was courting the Religious Right vote hard.

We're less than two weeks from actual voting. If Trump manages to ride this Sarah Palin wave to win Iowa and then wins NH where he is up big, he's gonna win at least a plurality of the delegates. I can still see the party deep-sixing him in some shady way. They have to.

But damn -- wasn't that long ago you guys were making fun of me for worrying about him as a serious candidate.

kujay wrote:We're less than two weeks from actual voting. If Trump manages to ride this Sarah Palin wave to win Iowa and then wins NH where he is up big, he's gonna win at least a plurality of the delegates. I can still see the party deep-sixing him in some shady way. They have to.

But damn -- wasn't that long ago you guys were making fun of me for worrying about him as a serious candidate.

Ding Dong Johnson wrote:I don't think I could ever express in words how much I dislike Ted Cruz, human Muppet. I think I see Trump more favorably.

Then again, it's close to a toss up for me between Trump and Hillary. She's the phoniest phony that ever phoned. And she's fake too.

That's my thinking, too. I just hate Ted Cruz. I hate looking at him, I especially hate hearing him talk, I hate every opinion I've ever seen him share. I'd take Trump over Cruz in a heart beat, and I hate Trump, too. Trump vs. Hillary is a different story, though. I'm not big on Hillary or anything, but Trump (and the Republican party in general) is dangerous and Hillary isn't. Hilary seems to be trying to advertise herself as a 3rd term of Obama, and while I think that's way better than electing Trump, I don't think that's a smart move for her.

I know its been talked about before, but my dream situation is that Trump wins the republican nomination, or is on pace to win the republican nomination, and they do something to force him out, leading Trump to run as an independent. Meanwhile, Bernie wins on the democrat side, the Republican vote is split between Trump and the Republican candidate and Bernie has an easy path to the white house. In fact I hope this happens every election until Trump passes away or the Republican party makes major changes.

kujay wrote:We're less than two weeks from actual voting. If Trump manages to ride this Sarah Palin wave to win Iowa and then wins NH where he is up big, he's gonna win at least a plurality of the delegates. I can still see the party deep-sixing him in some shady way. They have to.

But damn -- wasn't that long ago you guys were making fun of me for worrying about him as a serious candidate.

I'll still happily make fun of you for worrying about him as a serious candidate.

(Not so) hot take: he's not even the most dangerous/worrisome of the Republican candidates. Someone like Cruz or Rubio, IMO, would be much more damaging.